


anywhere with you

by sleepinnude



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Curtain Fic, F/M, Happy Ending, M/M, Roadtrip Fic, another curtain fic where they end up retired in rural central jersey, fanart inspired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:42:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24763303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepinnude/pseuds/sleepinnude
Summary: After all of it, they take a road trip and find a new home.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester
Comments: 50
Kudos: 193





	anywhere with you

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by this [lovely piece of fanart](https://castyel.tumblr.com/post/620938165558165505/i-bet-you-could-sometimes-find-all-the-mysteries) by the lovely jenny. hope you like this, bb.

Eileen finds a Polaroid instant-print camera at one of the second-hand shops they roll through -- oldschool, with the flash that flips up. A specialty store a few towns over has some of the film and the first picture she takes is of Sam, eyes dazed from the flash but still smiling a little because, well, he’s usually smiling when he’s looking at Eileen.

And just like that, their road trip has a documentarian.

*

After stopping in on Sioux Falls to see Jody and Donna and the girls (pictures of Kaia and Claire with heads close and cheeks together, of Patience and Jack, blurry, doing something called a TikTok dance, of Cas with his hands looped easily between his knees and his head tilting up, listening as Claire talks. His eyes are so blue Dean thinks it might be a trick of the print), they head east and a little South. They trek through small towns and big cities. Dean lets Sam drive more often then he usually would because he finds out that sitting in the back seat, with Cas against one side of him and Jack against the other is pretty okay, actually.

There’s talk of heading for New Orleans but something catches in Dean’s throat at the thought. (Something that has a Cajun accent and fangs and smells like seawater.) He claims that he doesn’t want to run in with any lingering ghosts and they turn their nose more properly east. Cas takes his hand without saying anything and Dean is grateful for the solid press of Cas’s palm against his own.

The trip itself was Dean’s idea. The balance restored, no God or Darkness, all doors to Earth and humans closed off meant their jobs were finished, in a way they never had been before. He won’t admit it, but it’s a way to find where he wants to settle. The bunker was great for the purpose it served but they don’t need a batcave anymore. They need a home.

He and Cas need a home.

And yeah, Sammy and Eileen and Jack will all always be welcome in that home, of course. But Jack has been talking about striking out on his own a little. And he and Sam have lived in each other’s pockets for going on 15 years now so maybe it’s time for some distance. Not too much, but well. Sam and Eileen are really making a go of it.

And he and Cas… Yeah, he guesses that’s what he and Cas are doing, too. Making a go of it, with this thing that has been growing steadily for years, has only just come to blossom.

Dean doesn’t know where he wants it to spread its leaves, this...them.

So, they got in the car, all five of them, and they drive.

*

Sam’s driving when they stop somewhere along the stateline between West and Virginia.

“What are we doing here?” Jack asks, but his words are content, like whatever the answer is will be fine.

“Everyone out,” is all Sam says in response.

And they all pile out and Sam, wordless, sits on the hood of the Impala and tilts his head up. And...yeah. Okay. Because the mountains, and the trees, and the stars swirling above. It’s enough of a reason for a pitstop.

Cas wanders a little further out into the field that casts out on the side of the road. It’s just dusk, so there are still colors in the sky, brilliant pinks and oranges and purple. Dean moves to stand next to him -- it’s nice to do that without pretending to have something to say, making up some reason for the closeness. It’s nice to just lean into Cas’s space.

Cas turns and gives him a smile and Dean returns it, as easy as breathing. The angel is still learning _relationship_ and _public displays of affection_ , so when he slides his first two fingers into Dean’s front pocket, Dean doesn’t say anything. Maybe that would be their version of holding hands or something.

Dean huffs an amused sound, almost a laugh, and slings his arm up, over Cas’s shoulders. “Pretty nice, huh?” he says, lifting his chin to indicate the spread of the horizon, the mountains, the trees. Or maybe just the whole of the night, the road-trip. The empty road with no destination before them. The two of them standing in an empty field to the side of Route 19.

Dean’s thumb is caught up against the shoulder seam of Cas’s coat, under the flap of the collar. He’s letting it run side-to-side and you could probably call it a caress, if you were writing that kind of story.

Dean has his eyes just tilting to Cas, so he doesn’t miss the smile when it comes. Watching Cas smile is still something close to religious ecstasy, Dean thinks. He can still remember, memory caught in amber, sitting on a park bench in October and thinking it odd that an angel smiled, that he made an angel smile.

Anyway, Cas is looking out at the sky or the stars or the mountains or the trees and he smiles and he nods. “Yes.”

Dean hears the click and wind of Eileen’s camera, but he ignores it. Maybe is happy to hear it. He’d like a relic of this moment.

*

They’re in Pennsylvania when they camp out, right in the middle of the state. Jack is enraptured by the whole of the experience -- likely because it includes fishing. He chatters happily, explaining to Cas that Dean took him fishing once. Cas smiles and says that he had been fishing with Dean a few times as well. When Dean passes him a questioning look, Cas explains ruefully, “Well. You were dreaming at the time.”

They drift and regroup and rearrange through the day -- Sam and Dean make camp, Eileen and Jack set off on a hike, Cas and Jack spend a long time in a copse of tree, listening for different birds.

In the evening, Sam, Eileen and Jack find a dog in one of the neighboring sites. They’re laughing with the dog’s owners, tossing a tennis ball, relaxing. Jack is playing with Eileen’s camera -- he’s still learning the mechanics of it -- lining up a shot of the dog as it leaps, or of Sam winding his arm back to throw. Eileen is standing by his side, adjusting and smiling.

Dean comes up to Cas and from behind and buries his face into the angel’s shoulder. Cas gives a twitch of surprise but when he speaks, it’s with warmth and a smile. “Hello, Dean.”

“Hey,” he says, voice muffled by trench coat. They’re working on PDA, on holding hands. Cas likes it, he’s said so, quietly, into the pocket of Dean’s sternum when it’s just the two of them awake at night. Dean likes it too which is something that he hasn’t really admitted since he was a kid, that he likes touch, likes being held. Dean goes to link their hands together but Cas has something else in mind.

His far hand comes up and cups Dean’s cheek to tilt his face in. Cas kisses him sure and sweet. This is new enough, or they're taking it slow enough, that Dean is still tallying the kisses. This is the ninth and it’s just as good as the eighth, just as good as the seventh, the third, the first. Cas’s fingertips are curved to just drift over the bones in Dean’s face, like Dean is fragile or precious. Like maybe he’s trying to match his fingers to the prints he left on Dean when he rebuilt him, soul up.

Dean inhales deep through his nose because he sometimes forgets to do that when he’s kissing Cas. Cas takes the time to bump their noses together and Dean takes a half-step back if only so he can catch his breath. Between them, though, he lets his last two fingers just bend around Cas’s first finger. Not quite hand-holding but somehow more intimate in its delicateness. 

“Wanna go for a walk?” Dean asks into the warmth of Cas’s mouth.

“It’s getting dark.”

“I got a flashlight. We won’t go far.” Dean smiles and he can feel the curve of it against Cas’s top lip. “It’s a full moon. I hear the stars are really bright out here.”

“The Harvest moon.” And then he smiles back. He dances his fingers forward so they’re fully holding hands now. “We’ll have to be on the lookout for werewolves, won’t we?”

“You know it, Cas.”

(Dean is driving the next morning, Jack hitching shotgun, when the kid pipes up that he had taken a picture of Dean and Cas the night before. The road is slow enough that he asks to see it there. It’s of the kiss, but not at all of the kiss. It’s of the moment of the kiss, but Jack has only managed to get their hands in the frame, the treeline and the early evening sky faded toward dark. Dean can still remember the soft stroke of Cas’s fingers catching on his, the inexorable pull toward the angel. He has to clear his throat before he can say, “That’s a real good one,” to Jack. Jack beams from it.)

They lay out in a far-flung span of green near a lake in Princeton, New Jersey. It’s so early it’s still dark, maybe four or five in the morning. There’s a few voices, nearby but echoing, shouting and he tenses at first until Sam explains that it’s the crew team. 

“Rowing,” he says, signing with his full range of motion, shoulders moving against the grass. “Stanford had a team. They practice crazy early in the morning.” Eileen’s camera is on his chest, Eileen herself sitting cross-legged next to him. Her face is tipped up to the pre-dawn breeze, hair shifting. Jack is sitting next to her, positioned exactly the same as her. 

Dean is too tired to be bashful. He has his face tucked into Cas’s neck, an arm over his chest, a leg just starting to crane over one of Cas’s. Cas has one hand softly petting through Dean’s hair and that...doesn’t suck.

The trees are still in full green but the weather is turning its thoughts toward fall. “We’re gonna need a blanket at the next stop,” Dean mumbles into Cas’s neck.

The angel, apparently, is ticklish, his shoulder pinching up a little.

Good to know.

Dean works his nose into the hollow more deliberately, lips just parted so warm breath skitters over Cas’s skin.

“Dean,” he says and the tone is pure warning.

“Yes?” Dean asks sleepily, innocent.

Cas huffs something that shows just how much he believes that act. The next second, he’s sitting up and pulling away.

Dean whines, drags out the syllables on a “No” so that the full scope of his petulance is heard. When he blinks open his eyes, intent on giving Cas an unimpressed glare, he finds Cas smiling down at him, extending a hand.

“I would like to see the water,” Cas says.

Dean glares for only a half-second before nodding and taking the offered hand. 

*

Dean didn’t know the East coast had fields like this. He didn’t know Jersey had...anything like this. He had only really been in the state that once, with the Turducken thing. Aside from the dense Pineys, he had thought it was all Jersey shore tans and choked off New York mimicry. 

Behind him, Sam whistles low. “Guess there’s a reason it’s the Garden State after all.”

Dean turns to smile at him and he sees Eileen and Cas just a little further back. She’s showing him something with the camera, pointing out buttons and the flash. He wants to be grumpy about it but all he can do is watch Castiel’s dark head nod and think about the pile of polaroids they have in the trunk, still growing.

“Cas, c’mere,” Dean calls and Cas looks up and smiles. Dean’ll never get tired of seeing that smile.

Cas signs a thank-you to Eileen and then wanders closer, the camera in his hands. 

“Gonna be the next Ansel Adams?” Dean asks once he’s close enough.

Cas cocks his head and then frowns down at the camera in his hand. “I do not think Ansel Adams used a Polaroid instant camera.”

“Well, even better. You can be the first.”

Cas tilts his chin a little and his eyes are so blue in the twilight. “We can go to Yosemite?” he asks.

“We can go anywhere,” Dean answers automatically. He takes Cas’s hand and pulls forward, wanting to move in closer to the trees, to see how dense a Central Jersey forest is. There’s tension in his arm, Cas holding still a moment, their fingers folded close. Before Dean can turn to check, he hears the camera click. 

When he turns, the camera is, indeed, spitting out a photograph. He rolls his eyes, mostly for show, and jokes, “Least you got my good side.”

“I like all your sides,” Cas says, eyes fixed on the haze of the Polaroid, still developing.

Dean doesn’t know what to say to that so he just treks back a few paces to stand closer to Cas. The polaroid takes a little while to develop, but neither of them seem to mind. They stand together, hands still clasped, and watch as the ghost of Dean’s frame comes into view, the edges of grass, flickers of fireflies, Cas’s hand in Dean’s, the edge of the trench coat. The both of them moving forward, into some future. 

*

Their house, eventually, is a mess of decoration. There’s posters and pins and postcards, some framed and mint condition, some yellowed and salvaged from thrift-store bins. There are medallions and trinkets that double as protection and warding. There are, after a few years, drawings and paintings from Eileen and Sam’s little girl. A calendar and a whiteboard. Wildflowers that wilt against thumbtacks that Cas couldn’t resist.

And then, matted but untouched, lined up in one long frame, are the Polaroids from that trip. Pictures of Sam driving, of Eileen laughing, of Jack concentrating. Of friends they visited, strangers they met, along the way. Of Dean and Cas, pressed together, and their hands finding one another.

**Author's Note:**

> [rebloggable on tumblr!](https://sweatercas.tumblr.com/post/621130442992648192/castyel-i-bet-you-could-sometimes-find-all-the)


End file.
